Read the Introduction
by Aaron Theophilus
COUNTER-ROLL PUBLISHING
The third volume closed in the cave of Machpelah, with Abraham buried by Isaac and Ishmael beside the field his father purchased, and the generations of Ishmael rolled up and set aside. The present volume takes up the seventh, eighth, and ninth toledoths of the book, the generations of Isaac and the generations of Esau, and it follows the birthright as it passes from the elder to the younger by the counsel of the record itself. Here Esau sells his birthright for a mess of pottage, the unconscionable contract that the whole volume will measure; Isaac digs again the wells of his father and the old titles are restored; and the blessing is secured by deceit, so that Jacob flees to Haran with the stolen blessing upon him and the ladder set between earth and heaven at Bethel, where the tithe is vowed.
Its span is the house of Laban and the new name. Jacob serves the fourteen years for the two wives and the two handmaids, and the twelve tribes begin in the flawed family. He administers the flocks with the ringstraked and the spotted, the first strategic asset administration in the record, and departs under the boundary covenant of Mizpah, the heap of witness set between the estates. At Peniel the man wrestles with the angel and receives the new name as the new title, Israel, the prince with God. The breach with Esau is healed in the embrace, the defilement at Shechem is purged in blood, and the household returns to Bethel purged of the strange gods. The volume closes with the generations of Esau disposed of in their roll, and the seed of the promise standing at last alone, ready for the tenth toledoth.
The doctrine carried in this volume is the law of the heir and the administration of the estate: the birthright as the title that can be sold but never truly parted with, the fraud that the blessing overcomes, the open gate at Bethel and the tithe as the acknowledgment of the tenancy, the steward's wage honestly administered, the boundary covenant between the two houses, the new name as the new title before God, and the purge of the strange gods at the return to the house of the covenant.